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Only a select few fashion VIP's received invitees to the intimate presentation in the tiny Tunisian's home/studio/headquarters in rue du Moussy in Paris' trendy Marais district, where he only ever walks/never drives to/from.

Who went? Not Anna Wintour. The fiercely independent and outspoken designer, who controls all his own marketing, rarely sends magazines his work to be photographed, only takes on clients he likes, rarely gives interviews or makes personal appearances, dared knock the fashion industry and its most senior divas Wintour and Karl Lagerfeld recently in an interview in The New York Times. He's been cross with her ever since discovering his work was not included in major fashion exhibition she had overseen at the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute in New York. Alaïa criticised the frenetic pace of fashion, citing the death of Alexander McQueen and relentless pressure on designers to come up with the next big thing as a major turn-off.

We do know however, that Alaïa's presentation drew some big names, with Donatella Versace, film director Sofia Coppola and rap star-turned-designer Kanye West all photographed arriving at the venue.

This fashion designer has always played the fashion game by his own terms however. Alaïa first shot to fame in the 1980s creating clingy, second-skin knitwear at £1000 a pop that still drives sensible (and rather wealthy) women wild. He has never advised. Why bother when you have the most powerful, media-grabing women on the planet, from Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni Sarkozy to Madonna and Naomi Campbell, his muse of 23 years, whom he refers to as his adoptive daughter, queuing up for your frocks?

Victoria Beckham calls him her favourite designer. Marc Jacobs is his best friend. Miuccia Prada too. She funded him to get his business back on track in 2000, giving him absolute leaway to do as he pleased. He bought it back and a year later sales had risen by 30 per cent to over $17 million.

Alaïa is a movie legend (remember
Clueless
when Alicia Silverstone is about to get mugged and says, "Careful, it's an Alaïa"), and more recently the star of a war crimes trial at The Hague, where the designer's muse and loyal supporter Naomi Campbell took to the witness stand in a cream Alaïa dress. Campbell also famously boycotted the Costume Institute's Met Ball in 2009 in disgust at Alaïa being left out of the 'Model as Muse' exhibition.

Awards? Too many to list. He refused the Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur, the French equivalent of a knighthood along with the top post in fashion, head designer at Dior, following John Galliano's dismissal.

But until now there was something missing from the puzzle. Alaïa's ready-to-wear, launched in 1983, has always been the stuff of waiting lists in fancy boutiques, but although he's always created made-to-measure one-offs for the likes of Grace Jones or some jet-setting billionairess, he's never been officially recognised as a couturier by the people who count: the stuffy French body representing the most exclusive fashion private members club in the world, the Chambre Syndicale (established 1868).

Today in Paris, Alaïa, the son of humble wheat farmers, could finally call himself an haute couturier.

Alaïa joins amongst others, Giorgio Armani, as a (foreign)
membres correspondant
of the 25 strong league who must adhere to strict rules and conditions laid down by the Chambre Syndicale, protected by the French government, one of which is to show haute couture collections twice a year (normally he only showed when he felt like it).